Entries Tagged as 'Great Markets'

Rongjiang Market 榕江市场

Guizhou Province 贵州省

We are updating this article with new photos. Rongjiang 榕江 is dusty but expanding town in Guizhou Province 贵州省. Rongjiang forms part of what is known as the Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture黔东南苗族侗族自治州; Qiándōngnán Miáozú Dòngzú Zìzhìzhōu.

Rongjiang is now connected to China’s High Speed Railway Network. The Train station is 5km out of town. There are buses 2 Yuan and Taxis 10/15 Yuan connecting Rongjiang to the train station. Rongjiang is on the Guangzhou – Guiyang line.

Rongjiang 榕江 is far from being one of China’s more attractive towns. It’s dusty and slightly chaotic. However, for the traveller, Rongjiang, not only provides a fascinating gateway to minority villages, but it also has an amazing Sunday Market that sucks in a myriad of different ethnic minorities for the day.

You are sure to come across the Dong minority 侗族 in huge numbers as well as various Miao 苗族 ethnic groups including the Gaoshan Miao and maybe even the odd Top knot Miao coming up from Basha village 芭沙村 near Congjiang 从江.

If you are passing through this area on your way between kaili 凯里 and Zhaoxing 肇兴; Rongjiang 榕江 makes for interesting break in the journey. In fact, just the spectacular bus ride between Kaili and Rongjiang makes the trip worthwhile.

Faces of Xiding Market Yunnan

西定市场

Bulang Women Xiding Market

Xiding Market 西定市场 in Yunnan`s Xishuangbanna Region is one of the best. In the previous post we put up we hadn’t got the photos ready. So here is a second post with the photos. Some things will have changed. But travellers still report that it continues to be an authentic rural market that attracts a number of different minorities including Bulang, Hani, and Dai.

Hani Women

We abandoned our driver, his car buried deep in the mud, and mounted a motorbike. Ironically, the previously treacherous mud bath soon became a reasonably smooth, semi-asphalted road. The drive was stunning:

Our Taxi van being towed away

we passed Dai villages with their traditional raised wooden houses, thick jungle and vistas of mist-covered hills and valleys flashed by, and just when it seemed that the scenery couldn’t get better, we arrived in Xiding, looking like an island floating above the clouds. Unfortunately, on closer inspection, the town revealed itself as a bit of a dump.

The small, grubby market town of Xiding may seem a strange destination, especially if you have to spend so much time and effort trying to get there, but its Thursday market is one of the most authentic ethnic markets in Xishuangbanna.

Hani Women

A hive of activity from dawn to midday, the market attracts nearby Dai, Hani (Aini or Akha), and Bulang minorities. It is said that Lahu also drop in, but we didn’t see or recognize any. The only real sign of Han-Chinese presence are the huge military barracks overlooking the town, a reminder that the Myanmar border is only a few kilometres away.

Bulang women

The market occupies a large square, just up the road from the bus station, as well as some of the adjacent streets. There is nothing touristy about this market, [Read more →]

Qingping Market 清平市场

Guangzhou 广州 1991 & 2013

The Urban Legend

Guangzhou Youth Hostel, March 1991, Shamian Island

Qingping Market

The rumor going round the hostel was about an American tourist who had fled China in tears after only 2 days into her 1 month trip.

The Legend
The unfortunate young girl had passed through Guangzhou’s notorious Qingping Market (清平市场) and seen two kittens kept in a tiny cage. The kittens were destined for the tables of Guangzhou’s restaurants. Thinking she would do the kittens a good turn, she negotiated a price for them. Expecting to save the kittens, she hadn’t counted on what would happen next. The store holder took the kittens out of the cage snapped their necks and handed their lifeless bodies over to her. She freaked out and was on the next express train back to Hong Kong.

Whether this is just an urban legend or a true story any visitor to Qingping Market in 1991 could believe it. The variety of animals waiting to be butchered made it feel like a zoo rather than a normal meat market. I remember Monkeys, Pangolins, giant salamanders, snakes, deer, dogs and even owls. The orangey color of dog meat roasting on spits was a common sight as were the restaurants with cages outside full of exotic fauna that made eating out a bit like dinning in a slaughter house.

However, we could never be certain that the cat story was true. Maybe it was just an urban legend.

Rongjiang Sunday Market (Guizhou Province, 2007)

Arrival
Our bus bumped into Rongjiang’s run-down and grubby bus station after a gorgeous five- hour, 160- kilometre bus ride from Kaili. Rongjiang, a scruffy town spread along the banks of two rivers, the Duliujiang and the Zhaigaohe, sits firmly within the Dong heartlands. Though the town has very little to interest travellers, it makes a good base for excursions to nearby Dong villages, some of which, such as Chejiang and Zenchong, are extremely beautiful. There are also a few interesting Miao villages, like Bakai.
We arrived in Rongjiang on a Saturday, as we were interested in visiting its large Sunday Market.

The Sunday Market

Rongjiang’s Sunday market is not as huge or hectic as the one in Anshun, or as colourful as the market at Chong’an, near Kaili. Still, it is an interesting place to wander for an hour or two and watch the local Dong minority going about their business. Many of the Dong, especially the women, dress up in their finest to come to the market: some wear bright blue jackets with appliquéd and embroidered borders along the sleeves and cuffs, combined with dark, baggy trousers, while others prefer shiny indigo jackets and short skirts. Dong people tend to have strong, sculpted features, similar to their South-East Asian neighbours in Thailand or Burma.
You might also catch a few different groups of Miao, such as the ‘Top-Knot Miao’ proceeding from Basha, a village near Congjiang, whose name refers to the typical hairdo of the men who wear their hair tied up in a high bun, or the ‘High Mountain Miao’, or ‘Gaoshan Miao’, from the nearby village of Bakai, with their beautifully patterned and embroidered trousers.
The Dong traders make quite an effort to sell their wares and the vegetable displays are particularly beautiful and elaborate. The market has two parts: [Read more →]

The hotel owner in Yuanyang had told us to get there early, as many of the hill tribe people have to walk all the way back and the market starts breaking up at around noon.

So we got to Laomeng at about 8:30, where we were among the first to arrive. We walked once round the town and had a look at the few stalls already set up by a small number of colourfully dressed Miao ladies and some older Yi women. Most of them seemed as curious about us, as we were about them. By the time we got back to our starting point, dozens of vans, carts and other vehicles had already arrived, unloading hundreds of passengers and all kinds of goods. They brought with them a kaleidoscopic mix of colours, as ladies from the Hani, Yao, Yi, Miao and Black Thai ethnic groups spilled out from the back and descended upon the market for a few hours of frenzied buying and selling.

For the next 3 hours we were treated to a visual feast that left us drained and out of film. Our driver had filled us in on some of the intricacies of the local costumes, so we were more or less able to distinguish between the women from the different ethnic groups…
For more go to: HolaChina: Your Gateway to China

The early morning mist and heavy cloud cover bestowed an eerie atmosphere over Chong’an. The river was motionless and silky smooth like a millpond.The town and the surrounding scenery seemed as if suspended in alandscape painting. Silence reigned. Then there was a shout, a curse and the haggling began. Chong’an Market was open for business.

The huge market held in Chong’an every five days is one of the best and most colourful in Guizhou. The local Miao and Gejia ethnic groups swamp the small scruffy town in a frenzy of buying and selling that lasts the entire morning and carries on into the early afternoon. Like the huge Sunday markets in Anshun and Rongjiang, Chong’an market is a farmers’ market, not a place to pick up souvenirs, but an excellent spot for people watching and soaking up the atmosphere. We got there pretty early, when things were just starting to kick off. Throngs of Miao, dressed in blue tunics and black trousers and wearing huge straw-hats over small white caps, or curious, shiny turbans of a brown, metallic material, were pouring into the market area from all sides. They were accompanied by the occasional Gejia lady, distinguishable by her multi-coloured hat with pointy side-wings and embroidered apron. The men came dressed in simple farming clothes and with the same conical straw-hats. Some of the villagers were ferried across the river to the market, while others had come over on a wooden suspension bridge, a few kilometres down-stream.

We abandoned our driver, his car buried deep in the mud, and mounted a motorbike. Ironically, the previously treacherous mud bath soon became a reasonably smooth, semi-asphalted road. The drive was stunning: we passed Dai villages with their traditional raised wooden houses, thick jungle and vistas of mist-covered hills and valleys flashed by, and just when it seemed that the scenery couldn’t get better, we arrived in Xiding, looking like an island floating above the clouds. Unfortunately, on closer inspection, the town revealed itself as a bit of a dump.

The small, grubby market town of Xiding may seem a strange destination, especially if you have to spend so much time and effort trying to get there, but its Thursday market is one of the most authentic ethnic markets in Xishuangbanna. A hive of activity from dawn to midday, the market attracts nearby Dai, Hani (Aini or Akha), and Bulang minorities. It is said that Lahu also drop in, but we didn’t see or recognize any. The only real sign of Han-Chinese presence are the huge military barracks overlooking the town, a reminder that the Myanmar border is only a few kilometres away.

The market occupies a large square, just up the road from the bus station, as well as some of the adjacent streets. There is nothing touristy about this market, the only things on sale are local produce, household goods and cheap clothes. A few noodle stalls feed the hungry shoppers. With everybody busily going about their business, nobody tried to sell us anything. The local kids, pipe- smoking old men and colourfully dressed women occasionally glanced at us with a certain amount of bewilderment, probably wondering why we had made it all the way out there. Even if you can speak Chinese, it is quite difficult to explain that you have come to see them.

City of Jade / City of Anger

Hotan is remote. It is one of those end of the world places beyond which begins one of the world’s largest deserts, the Taklamakan, an enormous area of sand dunes and barren rocks forming some of the most hostile terrain on earth. Boiling in summer, freezing in winter, towns like Hotan hang precariously to the desert’s outer ring, hemmed in by the looming Kunlun Mountains that rise up to the Tibetan Plateau. Over the centuries, many other once thriving oasis towns like Hotan have succumbed to the advances of the Taklamakan, and their half hidden remains lie buried in the sand, a poignant testimony to the harshness of the environment.